BERLIN (Reuters) -- Daimler and industrial gases maker Linde will build 20 hydrogen fuel stations in Germany in coming years to boost support networks for fuel cell cars.
Daimler joined forces with Ford Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Corp. in 2013 to jointly develop a powertrain blueprint for hydrogen-powered cars and the German automaker is aiming to bring mass-produced competitively priced fuel cell vehicles to market by 2017.
Toyota has said it plans a controlled rollout of its first production fuel cell vehicle in Europe next summer. Initially the car will be available in the UK, Germany and Denmark, where development of hydrogen fuel station infrastructure is the greatest.
Daimler and Linde will this year start investing 10 million euros ($13 million) to build 10 hydrogen fuel stations each and plan to set up a combined total of 13 through the end of 2015, the companies said in a joint statement today.
Germany currently has 16 hydrogen fuel stations in operation, including the first from Daimler and Linde, which started operating on Sept. 29 in Berlin.
Fuel cell cars compete with purely electric and hybrid vehicles in a race to attract environmentally-conscious drivers, emitting only water vapor and heat.
The cars can run five times longer than battery-powered vehicles and fill a tank 10 times as fast. But the high costs have prevented a commercial breakthrough until now.
